


Hot Coffee

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-21 23:58:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15569217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: When Noctis woke up that morning, it was hoping for a little miracle. A canceled event, a flooded out crowd, a storm so bad the whole city shut down. While the weather does not spare him his strife, he does get one miracle out of it, and it tastes even better than hot coffee on a rainy morning.





	Hot Coffee

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aithilin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/gifts).



> filled for a prompt [over here](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/176640335772/here-i-thought-some-hot-coffee-would-go-with)

“Here, I thought some hot coffee would go with the rain.”

Noctis blinked himself back out from his smudged reflection as warm ceramic nudged against the back of his hand. He faltered a smile up at Ignis without lifting his eyes to guide it, and hoped the muttered, “thanks, Specs,” would be enough to dissuade him from asking what was wrong.

It didn’t. Never did. But he at least let Noctis enjoy a few sips of his coffee without intrusion before proceeding to probe.

“You’re up early,” Ignis noted to start, an innocuous observation belaying a more alarming actuality – while Noctis couldn’t be counted on to wake up on time, his private clock was always consistent about when it was late enough to join the land of the living. The fact that it seemed to have set itself back to conform with social normalcy today… well, he couldn’t be blamed for worrying, could he?

“The rain woke me up,” Noctis only half-lied, affixing his gaze to the grayed-out city painted against the windowpanes.

It was a poor excuse, completely unbelievable given the apartment’s state-of-the-art sound-proofing and state-of-the-art everything. The rain was barely a whisper against the muffling walls, barely a ping against the bulletproof glass. If anything, it was the absence of its sound that had woken Noctis. Even after all these years moved out from the Citadel, and even after all his unsaid reliefs of what he’d escaped in that archaic mausoleum… there were still things he missed that had made it feel like home.

He’d been a child there, after all. He’d grown up there. He’d shared the best years of his father’s love there, curling up in the castle chambers when the thunderstorms came to chase ghosts from the corners with flashlights and magic flames. And while he’d needed the space once he’d grown older, once the vacant pillow at his side grew cold and the dip at the edge of his bed where his father sat to tell him stories faded away, there were still some things from the Citadel he just couldn’t escape.

“Is that the only thing?”

Ignis wasn’t looking at him when he asked, and Noctis was always grateful for that. He had enough eyes on him as it was. The Citadel still beckoned, after all. The Crown still called. No matter how far he ran, he would always go back.

“I thought maybe they’d call to say it was cancelled,” Noctis confessed in a whisper, ashamed for being so nervous over one rehearsed line and the snip of a ribbon.

“I’m afraid not,” Ignis said, with all the delicacy of an Oracle chasing the Scourge from one’s skin.

“Figures,” Noctis muttered, clenching his hands around his coffee mug so hard he thought it might break. “Rain or shine, sleet or snow, people will come for miles to watch the sheltered prince mess up.”

“Well, at least you’ll be giving them a show worth standing in the rain for.”

Noctis raised a glare at him, but it was hard to be annoyed when Ignis smiled like that, a clever quirk of the lips so contagious under the lazy ministrations of morning coffee.

“Think I should start charging admission for all my exploits of embarrassment?”

“It’d make you a pauper, Noct.” Iggy’s teasing turned softer and so did his eyes, shifting from their purposeful forwardness to finally look at Noct. “People would demand a refund when they didn’t get what they paid for.”

It was a good thing Noctis had hot coffee to excuse the flush in his cheeks and the duck of his face to take another sip. Praise was commonplace with Ignis, but never undeserved. He was awarded prideful platitudes when he stuck the landing from a warpstrike or felled Gladio with a practice sword or correctly matched the faces to the names of the foreign elite sweeping into Lucis for a conference. Words were rewards for a job well done, but times like these, grown more frequent since they’d moved in together, uncalled for and tender and simplistic, without any specific outcome to gain from them…

Noctis didn’t think he deserved those. He didn’t do anything to warrant them, just whined and complained and made a big deal out of nothing. That usually got him reprimanded more often than not. He was still getting used to having his displeasures with the Crown finally shared, though Ignis was far more subtle about it than he.

Nevertheless, deserved or not, the unguarded way Ignis looked at him in those moments never failed to make Noct’s heart rise in his chest, another new development grown familiar since his proximity to Ignis shrunk between these four walls.

“You’ll be there, right?” Noctis asked – as if he ever had to.

“As always.”

That always made him feel safer, at least. The rest of the world could laugh at him if they wanted, but so long as Ignis wasn’t ashamed of him, as long as he felt as exasperated by all the pomp and circumstance as Noctis did, as long as he wasn’t alone in his feelings of being put on a pedestal to pet and pamper and be praised for a position anyone else could do, this he would be okay.

The thought of Ignis, standing unaffected in a crowd of strange faces twisted to gossip and snicker and playact at loyalty, stuck with Noctis for a moment. He watched it play out in the tendrils of water webbing across the windows, watched the light from the Citadel in the distance beam through the murky grays of the storm, and thought of his own beacon in uncertain times.

Maybe he was a little brain-addled on caffeine and butterflies. Maybe he was a selfish, spoiled prince used to getting what he wanted. Maybe he was confused or scared or maybe he just needed to make one bigger mistake before the ceremony to dwarf the ones he was doomed to make.

Maybe he was just worse with words than Ignis was, and kissing him was the best praise he could exchange for his kindness.

He was quick about it, scared about it, darting in while Ignis was distracted with his coffee. An ill-timed aim, or the perfect one, Noctis snuck in just as Iggy’s cup was descending from his lips, arm freezing when his space was so unexpectedly occupied. Noctis barely registered _heat_ and _coffee_ and _Ignis_ before he pulled away as quickly as he came in, a mirror reflection of wide-eyed surprise on his friend’s face.

“For luck?” Noctis tried, the very foundations of his bones shivering with the threat of collapse. _For thanks?_ _For being there when I need you the most, even if you don’t need to be?_

The walls might have been sound-proof, but the rain hummed like distant gunfire in Noct’s head as he waited for Ignis’ reaction, waited for himself to process what he’d done as much as Ignis was trying to.

Ignis was more careful with how they proceeded from there, patient as the stone saints that held the very city on their shoulders. He set his coffee on the table in front of them – Noctis clutched his so tight he was more afraid of breaking his fingers than the cup itself.

“You don’t need luck, Noct. Certainly not from…”

“I do need you,” Noctis insisted, hastily searching for some way to amend his error. “You’ve got my back, you always have. You still do… right?”

Ignis looked taken aback by the entreaty, lips just barely kissed parting on a soundless plea. He pressed them together and lowered his face to take off his glasses – Noctis always told him he saw just fine without them. Noctis was glad he did. There was no obscuring the earnest devotion in his eyes when he looked back at him.

“ _Always_ , Noct. Always.”

If he’d wanted luck, Ignis gave him more than he would ever need for such a trivial task as cutting the ribbon to open the Citadel museum. The kiss was better prepared than Noct’s was, that was for certain. It was slow and savory, careful and yet so indulgent. There was a hand on his chin, breath in his lungs that wasn’t his own, and he was so, _so_ grateful that his hands were molded to his coffee cup, lest he fist them through Iggy’s immaculate hair and mess it all up – which wouldn't _really_ be so bad, would it?

Rain had a way of changing things, Noct thought. It washed out the old to sow in the new, taking Noct’s fears down in the storm drains as he stood beneath the umbrella later that day. He said his line, cut the damn ribbon, and shook whoever’s hand was behind the whole thing. And there was Ignis where he’d known he would be, perfectly proud and honest in his approval of even the littlest things Noctis accomplished.

Though he knew he was only bold enough not to screw the whole thing up because if he was brave enough to kiss Ignis and Ignis could kiss him back, he could handle a damn sash of silk.


End file.
